


Strong and Proud

by heartsdesire456



Series: Child of the Future [5]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Light Angst, M/M, Protective Parents, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsdesire456/pseuds/heartsdesire456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nyris comes home from school crying because of something a teacher said to her, everyone realizes nobody has ever seen Thranduil Greendwood actually angry before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strong and Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Idk why I thought this up the other day but I just had to add a little installment!

Among the people who knew them, Thorin Oakenshield was known as the more aggressive and hotheaded of him and his husband. In the business world, Thranduil Greenwood’s name had often been associated with comical scandals (and not so comical in his youth) and his funny antics. He was a drama queen more than anything, but a drama queen who was a strong CEO of his company. Whereas Thorin was a great CEO because of his determined nature, Thranduil was seen to be a CEO in spite of being a dramatic madman. 

Nobody had ever truly seen Thranduil Greenwood angry in all his life. Even Thorin had only seen him truly angry a very few times (and usually at Thorin for going too far in their playful bickering). His son, Legolas, had never once seen Thranduil truly angry in his whole life.

That is before now.

~

When Nyris came home, she went to her room and sat on her bed and began to cry. Kili, who had picked the children up from school, couldn’t get her to tell him what happened so he did what he thought best, he called his uncle. Thorin often got home first from work, so he would be there before Thranduil usually. However, before Thorin could get out of the office and come home, Thranduil had come home, bringing Legolas with him since they had some work to go over and Thranduil had left his laptop at home that morning.

When Kili heard them come in, he’d left Nyris and went to find Thranduil. “Thranduil,” he said softly, not wanting the twins to hear that their mother was home and rush to him before he could tell him about Nyris.

Thranduil looked up and shook his head. “Kili, I am really sorry, but Legolas and I have work-“

“But it’s Nyris,” Kili said quickly, and Thranduil stopped, giving him his full attention.

“What about her?” Thranduil asked worriedly.

Kili shook his head, eyes wide. “I don’t know. All I know is when she got home, she went to her room and has been sitting on her bed crying ever since and she won’t talk to me. I just called Thorin a bit ago to get him to come home as soon as he can. She’s very upset.”

Legolas frowned. “I thought she had archery club today,” he said, and Thranduil raised an eyebrow at him. “What?” Legolas gave him a half-glare. “You find it odd I know my sister’s after school teams? We do talk, you know.”

Thranduil made a noncommittal sound and turned back. “I should go talk to her. Maybe something happened that made her decide to skip practice.” He grimaced. “Please don’t let it be drama amongst pre-teen girls.”

Thranduil was just coming out of the doorway when the front door to the apartment opened and Thorin came in. Thorin caught his eyes immediately, shrugging off his jacket in a hurry. “What’s happened with Nyris?” he asked, dropping both his jacket and keys on the table by the door as he rushed to fall into step with Thranduil.

Thranduil shook his head. “I don’t know. I got home early to do some work here with Legolas and Kili just said she’d been crying since they got home.” He followed Thorin down the hall and let Thorin knock gently on Nyris’s door before opening it.

“Nyris?” Thorin asked, only to open the door fully when he saw Nyris laying on her bed crying into her pillow. “Oh, My Love,” he sighed, crossing the room. “What’s the matter?” he asked, settling on the edge of the bed, reaching a hand out to lay on her back.

She mumbled something that sounded like ‘nothing’ and Thranduil walked over. “Clearly it is not nothing, Nyris,” he said, sitting on the head of the bed beside her, reaching out to stroke his fingers gently through her curly hair just like her father’s. He glanced at Thorin, who shrugged. “Nyris, did something happen at school? I thought you had archery club practice today?” Nyris let out a soft sob and Thranduil nodded to Thorin. “Nyris, did you have a fight with one of your teammates?” he asked gently.

Nyris lifted her head some to look at Thranduil, tears streaking her face, her big, blue eyes ringed in red from the crying. “No, I got kicked off the team,” she choked out.

Thorin immediately sat up straighter. “What? You’re just as good as any of the other children on that team,” he argued, and Thranduil nodded.

“You may not be the very best, but you are not bad at archery,” Thranduil said firmly. 

Nyris whimpered. “I missed and almost hit someone. It was an accident!” she said quickly. “It was hot and my hands were sweaty and the string slipped!” She whimpered, face crumpling. “But I almost hit Coach Earynan and he got really mad. He-“ She stiffened and Thorin immediately stilled himself, unhappy with the hesitance she showed at telling them what the coach did.

Thranduil clearly was thinking the same thing and stroked her hair soothingly. “Nyris, what did Coach Earynan do?”

Nyris looked up at Thranduil with an anger and defiance in her eyes that reminded him of Thorin. “He said I’m a terrible archer because I’m a _Peredhel_.”

Thorin knew that word. He didn’t need to see the way Thranduil froze, eyes going dangerously narrow to feel anger rushing into him. He knew that word from all the insults that had been thrown his way when he and Thranduil had first married and revealed Thranduil was with child. It was also a word he hadn’t heard in a very long time.

Thorin’s voice dripped with rage as he spoke. “Your coach called you _what_?!”

It was Thranduil who snapped first though, uttering a wordless sound of anger as he stood quickly and turned to stalk out of the room. Thorin promised Nyris they would get to the bottom of this and quickly followed Thranduil.

~

Thorin, Legolas, and Kili all stood to the side, watching in awe, shock, and fear (respectively) as Thranduil paced the living room, tie ripped out of his collar, shouting down the phone in his Elven tongue at someone on the other end. Almost everybody tended to speak the common tongue all the time (Frerin and Ithiliel, for example, had only just begun to learn both their parents languages further than the common phrases they’d picked up growing up), so to hear him shouting angrily in such a beautiful language was something Thorin had never experienced and something he struggled to follow. He had learned much of his husband’s language, but he could not follow the pace.

He was about to ask Legolas when Thranduil broke into common tongue. “WE DO NOT PAY SO MUCH FOR OUR CHILDREN TO GO TO A PRIVATE SCHOOL FOR ONE OF YOUR TEACHERS TO CALL MY CHILD A HALF-BREED!” he snarled. “RACIST EMPLOYEES SHOULD BE TERMINATED!”

Thorin watched the fire in Thranduil’s eyes and was reminded why he loved Thranduil so much. “I will personally hunt Coach Earynan down and strangle the life out of him, you do not even want to test me,” he growled down the phone, dragging a hand through his hair, making it fall across his face. “My daughter came home crying because her _teacher_ called her a vile name and kicked her off the archery team because she is not fully an elf! What nerve do you have to tell me to calm down?! If I take her to school in the morning and that racist piece of filth is not fired and gone, I will rip his hair out and strangle him with it!” he snarled. “My little girl is perfect and beautiful and is not at all lesser for being half dwarf! There is nothing wrong with being a dwarf! The suggestion that a dwarf cannot be an archer is ridiculous! Dwarves are no less athletic or graceful, and Coach Earynan better be glad my husband has a better temper than I do or he’d find out for himself after making our baby cry!”

Kili slunk back a little. “He wouldn’t really strangle someone with his own hair… would he?” he whispered.

Legolas shrugged. “I’d do it if I knew who this Coach Earynan is. I cannot believe a teacher made my sister cry,” he grumbled, scowling in a way that made him look even more like his father.

“Do you know who her father is?!” Thranduil hissed down the phone. “She is Nyris _Oakenshield_! You honestly expect an apology to be enough after your teacher called the firstborn of one of the most powerful men in the whole city a racist slur?! He has to be FIRED!” he shouted, kicking the coffee table as he stopped beside it, shoving it several feet across the floor. “I WANT HIM FIRED AND NEVER ALLOWED TO TEACH IN THIS CITY AGAIN! I SHOULD SUE THE SCHOOL FOR THIS! RACIST TEACHERS ARE NEVER ALRIGHT!” he thundered.

Thorin crossed the room in a hurry, catching Thranduil around the middle as he grew red in the face. “Thranduil, Thranduil calm down,” he comforted, looking up at him. He reached up and tangled his hand in Thranduil’s hair to turn his face down. He shook his head. “If they will not fire him, we will withdraw our children from that school, we’ll tell anyone who will listen that it is a school that condones racism against its students, and we will sue that man who called my daughter such a horrible word for every penny he has,” he said calmly, making sure he spoke loud enough his voice was heard over the receiver. Thranduil looked at him, some of the fight going out of his eyes and showing more of the pain he felt at their daughter being the target of such hatred. Thorin plucked the phone from his hand and held it to his own ear. “Are we clear on that?” he asked.

There was a stuttered breath and a throat cleared on the other end. “I- Yes. Yes you are very clear. We’ll contact Coach Earynan and inform him that he is being released from his contract immediately.”

Thorin gave Thranduil a smile, reaching up to cup his cheek comfortingly. “Good. See that you do,” he said, and then hung up the phone. He dropped it on the couch beside them and curled his free arm around Thranduil’s middle. “It’s alright, My Dear,” he murmured and Thranduil closed his eyes, letting his head drop until their foreheads touched.

“It has been such a long time since anyone has dared suggest anything negative about our children being dwarf and elf,” he said, voice pained. “Not since Nyris was a baby, to my knowledge.”

Thorin nodded solemnly, sliding his hands along Thranduil’s sides soothingly. “Times are different now, but some prejudices linger in the shadows, I guess.”

Thranduil nodded, nose brushing Thorin’s, then tipped his mouth to press a quick kiss to Thorin’s lips before pulling away. “I need to go see about Nyris,” he said, and Thorin let Thranduil go. Kili and Legolas watched as he stalked past, looking more ruffled and disheveled from his angry grabbing at his own hair and clothes than he ever managed to look. Thorin knew that, deep down, Thranduil was more shaken by the reminder that, once upon a time, he, too, had been prejudiced against dwarves. Before they had fallen into their pattern of flirtation and argument and ended up falling into bed together, Thranduil had been raised to think elves were far superior, men were a humble second, and dwarves were far below any race there was. Thorin knew that Thranduil was so shaken because he knew what it was like to think the way Nyris’s coach did, he just had learned and grown once he was out from under his father’s bitter influence. 

Thorin couldn’t say he had never been without any prejudices against elves, not with the way their grandfathers had been such bitter enemies, but Thorin had always had a more focused prejudice against the Greenwood family of elves more than elves in general. Thorin shook his head and turned to Kili and Legolas. “Come on. I’ll have a car come for you two since Thranduil won’t be up to any work tonight,” he said, holding up a hand to clap them each on the shoulder as they passed.

~

After Thorin had checked on the twins and started dinner, he went to check on Thranduil and Nyris and found that Nyris had cried herself to sleep and Thranduil lay on her narrow bed beside her, arm curled around her middle, stroking her hair tenderly as he gazed at her face with nothing but love in his eyes. Thorin could see how red-rimmed Thranduil’s eyes were and he walked closer, kneeling beside the bed, looking over Nyris to meet Thranduil’s gaze. “Is she alright?” he whispered and Thranduil nodded mutely. Thorin looked at Nyris’s sleeping face and couldn’t help smile as he reached out and brushed her bangs from her forehead. He could remember when she was born, he and Thranduil would lie on the bed with her between them, curled up in a little blanket, and just watch her sleep together. 

“Our daughter is growing up,” Thranduil murmured, and Thorin looked up to see Thranduil was staring at Nyris with a tender smile. “One moment, there is a tiny baby with your features lying in my arms, and then I blinked and suddenly my tiny baby is on the cusp of becoming a teenager.”

Thorin chuckled, shaking his head. “Do you know the first time I realized that I was in love with you was the very first moment you held Nyris?” he asked, and Thranduil gave him a surprised look.

“You never told me that,” he said, and Thorin nodded, smiling at him.

“I had been in love with you for a while, ever since my father died and you made me realize how kind you really were on the inside, but I didn’t really understand it until the nurse put Nyris in your arms and you smiled the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen in my life as you stared at her.” He shook his head, eyes lingering over Thranduil’s face. “After having just given birth, all blotchy and red and with matted hair, you were still the most beautiful I had ever seen you when you looked at our daughter. The most beautiful I had ever seen anyone,” he clarified with a chuckle. “The only reason it still isn’t the most beautiful I’d ever seen anyone is because after seeing how beautifully you smiled looking down at her, I looked too, and I knew that from that moment on nothing would ever be more precious to me than our baby.” He glanced back down at Nyris, fingertip gently brushing the point of her ear as he played with her hair. “Little did I know we would have two more to share that position.”

Thranduil gave him a bright smile, eyes crinkling at the edges so beautifully. “I know I have probably said it before in all these years, but getting absolutely hammered and having ‘I-hate-that-I-find-you-attractive’ sex with you was the best decision I ever made. I may have already known exactly how much one could love a living thing because I felt the exact same way when Legolas was born, but having a family is the most wonderful thing in my whole life. I love my children and I love you so much. I even love your nephews and sister because they’re family. You know my family growing up wasn’t much of a family, and I tried my best with Legolas but it was just us two. You gave me that sense of family.” Thranduil’s eyes flickered to Nyris and Thorin’s heart broke at the pain in his eyes. “The thought that someone would make her feel like something is wrong with her because of our family is the worst I’ve felt in a long time. I never wanted any of them to ever feel like they were wrong because we are not the same race, Thorin. Never.”

Thorin sighed heavily. “I know, Darling.” He grumbled. “I hate it. I hate that horrible man. I hate him for hurting her and you by association. It almost makes me wish for the days when my ancestors were warriors who could’ve had him tossed into a dungeon and left there to rot and suffer for what he said to our child.”

Thranduil scoffed. “The world is lucky I have no royal powers or I’d probably have him flogged in public for committing such an offense as to verbally abuse a child because her father is a dwarf and she made a mistake. Besides, it’s _archery_. The idea that elves are more strong and graceful makes more sense applied to ballet, not a sport where you shoot a target. The only reason she wanted to do it is because both Legolas and Kili did it when they were in school. It’s hardly an elegant hobby.”

Thorin grinned. “Admit it, you’re rubbish at sports so you’re jealous she’s good at one,” he teased. 

“Am not,” Thranduil said a bit louder than their hushed tones so far, and they both winced when Nyris reacted to the sound, stirring slowly until she opened her eyes, only to blink a few times when she found herself staring at Thranduil. She looked over at Thorin and then rolled her eyes.

“Eme, Ada, why are you hovering?” she demanded, grumpy at being woken from her nap.

Thranduil grinned, winking at Thorin as he tightened his hold around her middle, making her squeak some as he crushed her into a hug. “Because you’re our little baby!” he cried, pressing kisses all over her face as she tried to get away. “Our beautiful, talented, smart, wonderful little girl!”

“Ewwww, Eme, get off me,” she whined, shoving at his hands, only to go limp when she failed, head rolling to the side to look at Thorin sadly. “Why?” she asked tiredly and Thorin chuckled and leaned closer, arms crossed right beside her, chin resting on his forearms.

“Because we like to remind ourselves ‘yeah, we made that’ when you’re particularly distracted,” he joked and she mimed gagging.

“Oh Mahal, is that necessary?!” she demanded.

Thranduil laughed gleefully, nodding eagerly. “Of course it is, your Ada and I are very proud of how talented we were at procreation. We managed to make three smart, beautiful, wonderful babies in only two tries!”

“Eme!” Nyris whined, covering her eyes. 

“To be perfectly honest, if I hadn’t been so old that the twins caused the problems they did, it’s likely your father and I would’ve managed to make a whole army of perfect little babies!” he continued, wiggling his eyebrows. “Not that it stops us trying, mind you-“

“Okay, no!” Nyris said, sitting up with a mortified look on her face. “No, no, no, really Eme, _ew_ ,” she said, and Thranduil laughed so hard he fell off his side of the bed.

Thorin chuckled, standing up once Thranduil had fallen to the floor. He leaned over and pushed Nyris’s hair back and pressed a kiss to her temple. “All teasing aside, we love you so much, Nyris. You are perfect in every way, and anyone who says otherwise is incredibly wrong.” Nyris gave him a weak smile and, with little warning, threw her arms around his neck, hugging him hard as she hid her face in his hair. 

“Ada, I’m proud I am half-dwarf,” she said, voice muffled by his hair and his shoulder. “I hate him for saying it’s bad, because I wouldn’t want any other Ada than you.”

Thorin couldn’t fight the tightness in his throat or the stinging in his eyes as he turned his head and kissed Nyris’s cheek, clinging to her as hard as she was him. “Never let anybody make you think you are less than anyone else for any reason, but especially not for being half-dwarf. Never let them take that pride from you. Never let anybody, elf, dwarf, or whatever, tell you that being of more than one race is shameful. You are perfect as you are, with a dwarf’s wild hair and an elf’s beautiful ears, and nobody can ever tell your mother you would be better if you were an elf like him or tell me that you would be better if you were a dwarf like me. We like you how you are and you should always be proud of the person you were born to be, not what some horrible person says you should have been instead.”

Nyris pulled away from Thorin to hug Thranduil as well before she got up and left to go gather her things and do some homework before dinner. Thorin stood and watched her walk out of the room, unable to help feel overwhelming love for how strong and brave his child was. Thranduil came up behind him and curled his arms around Thorin’s shoulders, resting his chin on top of Thorin’s head for a moment. “Damn, we’re doing a good job on that one,” Thranduil said, sounding proud and somewhat surprised.

Thorin laughed and nodded, turning out of Thranduil’s hold to reach up and kiss him sweetly on his beautiful cheek. “Let’s just try and manage the same success with the other two by the time they’re her age before we start congratulating ourselves,” he said, and Thranduil gave him a warm smile.

“For some reason, I don’t think we have to worry.”


End file.
